Hates Them Meeses To Pieces by Bill O'Dea Copyright 2004. A Classic mission for 3-5 players Playing time designed for 1 session (actual playing time may vary) INFRARED clones in the WIL Sector Soylent Red Production Center have been rioting more than usual lately. The reason? A rat. Yes, a real honest-to-goodness white rat. Did we say white? Background: Keri-Y-LOP-2 was one bored supervisor. Assigned to the Soylent Red Production Center in WIL Sector, she was in charge of 22 INFRARED workers and responsible for maintaining Soylent Red production quotas. The production process is by and large automatic, and the INFRARED drones that work there are assigned mundane, hard-to-screw-up tasks such as Turn The Knob When The Light Goes Red and Scrub The Forced Growth Algae Tanks When They're Empty. INFRAREDs are happy with such mindless tasks (with no small thanks to mandatory doses of gelgerine), but a YELLOW citizen will need something to occupy their minds. Especially for Keri-Y, who constantly dreams of running away to the Outdoors with the rest of her Sierra Club buddies. Ah, the call of the wild! When her INFRARED workers started screaming and rioting, she didn't think much about it. INFRAREDs are so undereducated and overmedicated that they can riot over almost anything, including the thought of a riot. This time was different. After Keri-Y gassed all the INFRAREDs to sleep, she found something moving among the slumbering forms: an albino rat. She'd seen rats during her Sierra Club initiation, but never a white one. She thought about taking it as a pet, but that went against her particular form of Sierraism – let natural things do their natural things. So she hurried it back behind the Protein Breakdown Tanks where it seemed to live. If Keri-Y wasn't so desperate for some excitement, and so into nature, she might have wondered why the rat survived the sleep gas. Or why it never ate the food she left out for it. The rat is not a rat. It's an escaped experimental bot from Research and Development. R&D was told by an ULTRAVIOLET to design a covert surveillance bot for spying on the Outdoors. After a bit of research, the scientists decided a rat would make a perfect model for their bot. It's small, easily overlooked in the wild, and quick. Thus was born bot type JER-475-E – usually called Jerry by the R&D staff (and coincidentally by Keri-Y—best not to dwell too much on that coincidence). Once built, the scientists decided on a test run to see if Jerry could manoever on its own. It worked too well. Jerry quickly disappeared down a ventilation shaft and hasn't been seen for weeks. The ULTRAVIOLET who ordered it is getting mighty impatient, making R&D mighty nervous. They will be very happy if someone found their bot—intact. JParanoia Notes: This mission was originally designed for use with the JParanoia application available from the Paranoia-Live website (www.paranoia-live.net). To that end, we have broken down this mission into color-codes to make GMing more easy. All text in red is for GM-to-Player communication (such as scene descriptions) and can be cut and pasted into the main text box when appropriate. All text in blue is for NPCs' speech and likewise can be pasted into the text box. Text in standard black is information for GMs only. Yes, INFRARED text is ULTRAVIOLET. Got a problem with that? It will also help to set up the following NPCs in the Spare NPC list or by editing the Playerlist.txt file in the JParanoia directory: John-G-GLD-3, Distribot Mark 3, Keri-Y-LOP-2, INFRARED worker, Jerry, Up Group, Down Group, BLUE R&D clone. JParanoia GMs with too much time on their hands can edit this document and add a single quote mark to the beginning of every blue line. That way, you can copy the whole line, paste it in the main text box, and use the line as a spoof. You're welcome. Summary: 1: Outfitting before briefing? If you say so. PCs are stuck playing with an INFRARED deck of cards (52 black cards) when a corrupted mission alert comes through their PDCs. If they translate the alert correctly, they read how they must report to Room 46 in RRT Sector for a briefing, but only after getting gear at the level B12 PLC Distribution Center. Their briefing officer informs the team of INFRAREDs rioting more than usual, and they are sent to find the source of these riots. 2: A truly wireless mouse ... er, rat. Once they arrive at the Soylet Red Production Center in WIL Sector, the PCs meet Keri-Y-LOP-2, the center's supervisor. When the INFRAREDs see a Troubleshooter team in their office, they panic and start to riot, thinking the PCs are there to terminate all INFRAREDs for even looking at something white. When the INFRAREDs are pacified one way or another, Jerry makes his appearance. Keri-Y freaks out and tries to kill the PCs to save Jerry, and The Computer orders the Troubleshooter to capture Jerry and take him to a nearby R&D lab. 3: Okay, maybe it's not so wireless. After sneaking through a dorm filled with sleeping Vulture Squadron warriors, the PCs reach the R&D lab and turn in their pet rat. The scientists at the lab are very happy over the return of their lost bot, and Jerry announces it has been recording everything the Troubleshooters did from the Soylet Red center to now. In debriefing, Jerry reappears and PCs must defend their actions against a robotic rat. 1: Outfitting before briefing? If you say so. The mission finds the PCs waiting in the Troubleshooter Staging Area and Cafeteria waiting for their next mission. Just as the players start to get bored (but long after the characters have gotten bored), a mission alert is cmailed to everyone's PDC. Due to CPU mandate TMCP446.29/b 'Improving Troubleshooter Efficiency Through Pre-Outfitting,' the PCs are sent to Outfitting before they attend their briefing. Then they'll attend a briefing with an unusually short GREEN officer and be sent on their murderous way. I'd like to buy a vowel please The PCs start by being bored. Really, really bored. Nothing is going on right now, and the PCs are just sitting around the Troubleshooter Staging Area and Cafeteria (Tension 5). Feel free to cut this short if you'd rather get on with the mission, but playing up the boredom angle might be fun ... for a bit. Don't let your players get bored – that's for other (non-fun) games. Be sure to award some Perversity for good role-playing. What a boring day. You're happy, of couse! It's just that ... you could use some different but equally strong happiness, y'know? I mean, watching IntSec! vidshow reruns and playing Top Card with an old pack of INFRARED playing cards is great, but you're Troubleshooters! You want to go shoot some trouble! Yes, this is a cafeteria. If they want, PCs can order some standard RED food: Soylet Red, FunFoods, even some B3 if they're really nice. The cafeteria staff are all ORANGE, and they're not very happy with serving REDs, even if the REDs are Troubleshooters. Whenever you deam appropriate, have their PDCs start beeping like an alarm clock that stutters. Everyone's PDC starts beeping loudly! What do you do about it? Any PC who ignores the beeping PDC will be asked, politely, by an ORANGE cafeteria worker to stop making that noise before someone gets hurt. Show the following to anyone who opens the cmail. Suspicious types who look at the sender address will note it's from 'thecomputer@thecomputer.' The message reads, "ttn: Trblshtrs! Rprt t Rm 46 n RRT Sctr. Nw! f y r lt, y my b xctd! nd dn't frgt t vst th lvl B12 PLC dstrbtn cntr bfr y cm t th brfng fr yr qpmnt. Yr tm nm s "Trblshtr Tm 46-B". Thnk y. -- Brfng ffcr Jhn-G-GLD-3." Players should not have too much trouble figuring out this message. The only really tricky part is their team name; it's '46-OB', not '46-B.' So if any plucky Troubleshooter tries asking for help from Friend Computer, it won't recognize their team name. The Computer: I'd be delighted to give you a map to RRT Sector. Jenni-R: All right! Thank you! The Computer: I just need the name of your Troubleshooter team. Jenni-R: Oh, right ... it's 46-B. The Computer: Searching. You are in error. There is no team 46-B. Jenni-R: Er ... a Commie sabotaged my PDC! The Computer: What proof do you have that you didn't sabotage it yourself? Jenni-R: Why would I do that? The Computer: To gain a map to RRT Sector for your terrorist plot. Jenni-R: Er .... If they overlook the part about going to PLC for outfitting before the briefing, let it happen. Then have the briefing officer convict them all of treason code TT/1 “Disobeying a direct order from a mission superior', which carries a penaly of P5B (refer to pg. 248 in the PARANOIA XP rulebook, or just make something up). Then send them back to outfitting. How can the PCs get to the level B12 PLC distribution center in RRT Sector? We think it's best to just say, “Fine. You get there. Now ....” But we realize that some Gms are quite fond of travel-related mishaps, so here's a list of possible ways to get there from here: Take a transtube to RRT Sector (yawn) Walk there (“Two days later, everyone is terminated for abandoning the mission”) Hitch a ride on a truckbot carrying large barrels of axle grease Call The Computer and ask for transportation (Ooh, not smart) Call a service firm and ask if anything needs to go to RRT Sector We'd write out complicated, detailed descriptions of all of the above options, but we're lazy bastards. That's why we prefer the, 'Fine. You got there.' method of transportation. But hey, it's your call. The future of buying crappy, defective merchandise is here The level B12 PLC Distribution Center is a long, thin room about 2 meters wide. You're at one end. At the other end is a large machine that disappears into the wall behind it. The machine is labeled, 'Distribot Mark 3 - Presented by PLC'. It has a keyboard and monitor set above a giant, gaping hole. Clear plastic flaps cover the hole and occasionally shake and rattle. When someone decides to head down the to the machine, read the following. The walls and floors near the machine are covered in dark red stains. An INFRARED chalk outline of one unfortunate clone is on the floor, roughly four meters from the opening ... and another one about two meters from the opening ... and a third right in front of the opening. This is the Distribot Mark 3, an experiment at automated PLC outfitting. The keyboard and monitor allows visitors to enter their name or team designation. The inputed data is checked against PLC online records to find the appropriate equipment. An order is then made to as many warehouses as needed, and the equipment is quickly shipped via giant pneumatic tubes. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has not played PARANOIA enough. The distribot is not a true bot as it does not have a valuable bot brain inside. The name is used as a marketing ploy; a CPU focus group found citizens are more comfortable dealing with bots than mindless machines. Given that the focus group in question had friendly IntSec goons watching over them, they probably would have agreed to anything CPU said. As you get close enough, you see words on the vidscreen: 'Welcome! Please type in your name, team designation, or PLC FastThru order code.' Although it can speak to citizens, the distribot was never designed with an aural interface. It completely ignores the PCs until someone starts typing. If a PC types in '46-b,' or anything other than the true name of 46-OB, then the distribot says: Beep! I'm sorry, the team you dialed is incorrect. No requisition order exists for a team named 46-B. Please try again or press help for assistance. Anyone who presses the large, friendly button labeld HELP will get the following: Thank you for contacting the PLC Distribot Help Line! Please hold, an operatorbot will be with you shortly. Your estimated waiting time is two years. 'When you get caught between the room and new YOR sector, I know it's crazy, but it's approved truth ...' If the players want to wait it out, let 'em. In about five hours, a group of RED Troubleshooters shows up looking for the level B12 PLC Distribution Center. Yep, the PCs have been declared MIA and another team has been sent on their own mission. That'll make for some fun explanations, eh? Keep playing the error message until they figure out the missing vowel. Then read the following: Welcome, team 46-OB. On behalf of PLC, thank you for agreeing to use this experimental outfitting service. Please wait as I secure your equipment from distribution centers across the complex. Give the PCs a minute to start making some trouble, then have the packeges arrive. The machine rumbles. It shakes. It makes loud grinding noises. It starts to smoke. A package plops into the hole behind the flaps. This is the first piece of equipment on the list below. The others are on their way, flying down pneumatic tubes at incredible speeds. It would be very bad if something was blocking the exit. How bad? Well, it depends on what's in front of the distribot. In other words, you can make this as happy or as deadly as you need. Did the players start to cooperate (gasp!) or not backstab enough on their way to here? Then chuck a package at a random PC at Mach 2. Is some player getting on your nerve? Aim it at his character's head. And for those GMs who really like to get into method role-playing, go out the day before and buy some empty boxes. When this scene come up, start throwing them at your players; anyone who gets hit loses a clone. What if someone quickly grabs the package from the delivery slot? It depends. The distribot will read the RFID signals from each PC's ME Card and check it against the team's Mandatory Bonus Duty list, so if the Equipment guy grabs the package then there's no problem. In fact, the Equipment Guy can keep doing this for all six packages if he makes a successful Violence check. But who's the Equipment Guy? Usually, that's determined at the mission briefing, but since that hasn't happened yet, no one is. The distribot recognizes the PCs as Troubleshooters, but because none are listed as Equipment Guys it won't authorize the release of any package. If players wait until the distribot stops shooting boxes, then they can grab the stuff. Except for the last box, which is still in the delivery slot. If anyone grabs a package while it's still in the delivery slot .... Two steel clamps slap onto the hands grabbing the package! A siren blares! 'Illegal theft of requisitioned property! Only Equipment Guys can handle PLC packages! You have been warned! Then start tossing the boxes around the room. Once replacement clones have arrived and people start opening the packages ... oh wait, they can't. Each package has been thoroughly bent, folded, and spindled. The brown cardboard boxes have smashed corners and discolored bits. They all feel a bit damp. On every side is the stamp, “Team 46-OB only – open immediately.” Every box is sealed tight with GREEN tape that says, “Do not break seal if clearance is YELLOW or lower.” What now? PCs who open the boxes now will not be punished ... until they arrive at the briefing. Then they'll be fined 300cr and forced to wear a tattoo on their forehead that says, 'I'm a naughty clone.' They can now head to their briefing, which is Room 46-B of this sector. We're fond of a simple elevator ride to the room, especially one where all the lights suddenly go out and the car slams to a halt. Give the players a few minutes to be evil and then bring the lights and motion back. The long and (very) short of it Room 46-B is small and cramped. Water drips from the ceiling, and everything feels damp and smells musty. Five RED chairs are lined up just inside. Each chair was probably quite plush and comfortable once, but now they're partially black from mold. A single bulb shines brightly from the center of the ceiling. A very short GREEN citizen is waiting inside the room. He stands on an old Hot Fun crate set atop of a moldy GREEN chair. Even then, he only reaches about two meters high. He's holding his PDC and shaking his head. This is the team's briefing officer, John-G-GLD-3. He is not a mutant, but he is as short as can be without being declared a mutant (acutally, he missed that mark by about two centimeters but more than made up for it by about two hundred credits). In fact, he's so short that CPU keeps giving him the worst briefing rooms, materials, and services. CPU figures that it's only a matter of time before John-G is found to be a mutant, so CPU wants the record to show they treated the mutie with contempt. I'm your briefing officer, John-G-GLD-3. Are we all here? I hate it when teams show up short. Do we have at least half? Any player who laughs, chuckles, or even snickers at John-G's choice of words will be in big trouble, and that's no small lie. Damn, this is fun to write. Did you drop by the level B12 PLC Distribution center? Did you get your gear? Don't tell me those PLC idiots short-changed you. I've got half a mind to tell them off! If the team misread the mission alert and showed up here before getting their gear, then John-G will convict them all of treason code TT/1 'Disobeying a direct order from a mission superior', which carries a penaly of P5B (refer to pg. 248 in the PARANOIA XP rulebook, or just make something up) and send them back to outfitting. Yes, tha sentence was basically a simple cut-and-paste from the earlier section. Nothing wrong with cutting corners. Famous Game Designers do it all the time, so us Not-At-All-Famous Game Designers can do it too. Your mission is to determine the cause of recent INFRARED riots in the Soylent RED Production Center in WIL sector. I suspect Keri-Y-LOG-2, shift leader of the production center, but we need proof. P-r-o-o-f. Don't short-change me on the proof, got it? Yes, proof. Even in Classic style, proof of treason is required to make most accusations stick. John-G could really care less about Keri-Y and the INFRARED riots. He's about to undergo an experimental R&D procedure to increase his height. That'll give anyone a lot to think about. So he's not as prepared as he should be. Now, time for some Mandatory Bonus Duties. Don't worry, it's a short list. Anyone big enough to volunteer? John-G has no idea who to pick. In fact, he's so pre-occupied by his impending surgery that he's not even sure what MBDs exist. Let the players jockey for their favorite duty and then assign them to the player who seemed the most enthusiastic. But if a player gets creative and makes up their own MBD, then John-G will assume he'd forgotten about that one and he'll assign it. Dmitri-R: Oooh! I volunteer for Screaming Officer! John-G: You do? That's ... great. You are now the team's Screaming Officer. Jenni-R: Screaming Officer? Dmitri-R: I MAKE SURE SCREAMING IS DONE WHEN NECESSARY!!! Jenni-R: Oww! Was it necessary to scream in my ear? Dmitri-R: I ALSO DECIDE WHEN SCREAMING IS NECESSARY!!! Just make sure you don't give that player a carte blanc to torture everyone but himself. Let him have some fun, and then have it bite him in the ass like all things PARANOIA. Dmitri-R: I THINK WE SHOULD ALL START SCREAMING!!! IntSec: Excuse me, citizen. Do you realize you exceeded the decibal threshold for this corridor by several percentage points? Dmitri-R: NO I ... I mean, no I didn't officer! IntSec: That's a 100cr fine per decible, so you owe ... 3,700cr. Dmitri-R: Oh. Can I put that on my ME Card? IntSec: You also have to wear this sticker over your mouth that says, 'Too Loud.' Dmitri-R: Mmphf! Mrr mph mmmmrrrr.... Once the MBDs have been assigned, John-G orders the team to open the packages and distribute the equipment. The Equipment Guy can take over distribution, or the Team Leader can. It's not really important who gets what, just make sure everyone has a new toy. There should be six packages, one for each MBD. If the PCs are one short, then John-G is going to expect the newly-appointed Equipment Guy to explain why something went missing, and he won't take, 'I wasn't the Equipment Guy then' for an answer. Load-Bearing Backpack: a sizeable backpack with a lightweight plastisteel frame, a back-support belt, and two long poles sticking out of the bottom that end with wheels. A clone wearing this can carry more weight than they ever could. They can also get stuck in doorways, escalators, chairs, etc. Think of a cross between a backpack and a shopping cart. Tactitcal Info Helmet: a thin helmet with a black visor. When worn, the visor activates and displays a bewildering array of data to the wearer: area clearance, power fluctuations, wifi router usage, structural integrity, albeido, humidity, temperature, height, weight, depth ... you get the idea. A successful Software/Data Search roll will reveal almost anything the player wants to know about something he's looking at. Failed rolls will give completely false data. All the data swarming in front of a player's eyes make it more likely to not see something outside of the data. Oh, and the helmet doesn't protect worth a damn. Smile Gauge: a device for measuring the width and intensity of a smile, thereby measuring the happiness of a clone. It has thick, pointy ends connected by a spring-loaded tape measure. Place one end at a smile's corner and stretch to the smile's other end to get a measurement. The spring-loaded tape is very stiff; it takes a successful Violence/Fine Manipulation roll to use. Otherwise, make an Arbitrary Justice roll: 1-10, the user gets his fingers caught as the two ends snap back; 11-20, the smiling clone gets his lips caught in the device as it snaps back. Disinfectant Gel: a 1-meter long tube of 'YesYesHealthy Anti-Bacterial Lotion.' Its anti-bacterial power comes from being a mild acid. Characters who use this will be very clean as the acid burns away a layer of skin. The process is painful (Biological S6W) and will leave characters with a pink, fresh-scrubbed look. It does corresponding damage to bots, equipment, wall, etc. Discoloration will occur, but not enough to change clearance (unless you want it to do that). SkinnerStick: this is a low-powered cattle prod used by teacherbots to help students learn quicker. The electric shock generated is designed for small, young citizens and is not very powerful. However, it is strong enough to piss off any adult who gets shocked (Energy S5W). It occasionally malfunctions and generates a huge shock (Energy W3D), and it often backfires against the user when being used. Or carried. Or looked at. Mood Lighting Pack: designed to enhance a video recording, this is a series of three lights on lightweight tripods: one red light, one strobe light, and one klieg light. The red light makes things look red and kinda errie (it does NOT change clearances!). The strobe is ... well, a strobe. Makes you sick if you stare at it long enough. The klieg light is an extremely powerful light for long-distance lighting. It starts small fires on anything within two meters of the bulb and can burn exposed skin (Energy O2W). I don't want any half-assed jobs out there! I know this is a tall order, but if you're half the clones your files say you are, then it should be a short mission for you. Now, off you go! John-G will entertain a few more questions, but that's it. He has bigger things on his mind. Get the players to WIL Sector one way or the other. You know the drill by now. 2: A truly wireless mouse ... er, rat. When the players have arrived, read the following: You found the room. Oops! That's the WIL Sector Morgue. The WIL Sector Soylent RED Production Center is next door. Silly me. If anyone goes into the morgue, send the player a secret note that says, 'You see ... well, your mind blocks most of it out. You rush back out to the hallway feeling very nauseous, and strange images of a chainsaw, open flames, and a bag of algae chips. Role-play that.” Soylet Red is made by INFRAREDs! INFRAREDs! Inside, the Production Center looks like a huge room filled with conveyor belts, small vats, exposed vents, and hanging power cords. INFRAREDs work diligently, processing the tasty treat you know as Soylet Red. Some are mixing red dye into the base soylent, while others are filling QwikHeet Food Packets and HungryClone Soylent Red Meals. In the middle of all this activity stands a tall female clone wearing a YELLOW lab coat and hard hat. I'm Keri-Y. What gives? I'm behind our Mandatory Voluntary Quota as it is! This is Keri-Y-LOP-2, who's not happy to find Troubleshooters in her center. She's unhappy for several reasons: 1.The INFRAREDs riot at the drop of a hat, and Troubleshooters will only make things worse. 2.She's already behind in Soylent Red production, and Troubleshooters will only make things worse. 3.She's worried about Jerry running around somewhere, and Troubleshooters will only make things worse. All in all, she really doesn't want the PCs around and she'll try to get rid of them as soon as possible. She's not stupid, and she knows that if she presses too hard for the team to leave, the PCs will want to stay that much more. So she tries several tactics to get the PCs to leave her alone: The old “Radiation Leak” excuse: This will cause the INFRAREDs to riot, but they're probably already rioting by the time she gets around to this idea. Soylent Red Taste Test: She offers free samples to all the Troubleshooters from a spoiled batch that will cause lots of problems to anyone who eats it. What kind of problems? Um ... spontaneous defecation is one. Vomiting is another. Need more? Pull rank: She doesn't think this will work, but she is YELLOW and the PCs are all RED. A call to The Computer will result in a 100cr bonus for each PC for staying true to their duty and a 200cr fine for disobeying a citizen of higher clearance. The “True” Story: She'll whisper that her supervisor, David-G-MCH-3, keeps coming around and feeding strange medications to her INFRAREDs. If any player falls for this one, let the team have fun investigating a GREEN PLC manager with several commendations for Loyalty in the Face of Tempting Treason. In other words, let them get themselves terminated. Assuming the PCs stay around and try to figure out why the INFRAREDs are rioting so often, Keri-Y will use her last resort. I have no clue why they're rioting so much. These INFRARED drones scream at the drop of a hat. Watch this! Keri-Y takes off her hat and drops it to the floor. It makes a loud noise, and the INFRARED clones all start screaming and panicing. That's right, she started another INFRARED riot. Let the players have some fun with this one. If they try nicely to calm down the INFRAREDs, give them all a few Perversity Points. As soon as a PC starts getting violent, have Friend Computer drop by over the room's intercom. Attention Troubleshooter Team 46-OB. You are supposed to be investigating an INFRARED riot, yet it seems one is starting. Care to explain? If a player says something along the lines of, “Don't worry! We're getting it under control!”, then The Computer asks how the Troubleshooters are 'getting things under control.' I recommend you find a way to keep those valuable INFRARED workers on the job. Remember, INFRAREDs are the backbone of the Complex. Their work is extremely valuable. Keep them focused and healthy! Or else! If a PC gets violent after The Computer said not to, then just declare him a traitor for disobeying a direct order from The Computer and roll out his next clone. Of mice and clones Just when the players have gotten everyone to calm down .... The INFRAREDs start screaming again, but this time some are pointing to a corner of the room. Something small is moving in the corner. Keri-Y knows what this means, and she'll step up her efforts to get rid of the Troubleshooters. She won't try to be slick at this point, as she's desperate to protect Jerry (and her own treasonous hide). If someone investigates, read them the following: It's ... something. It looks like a tiny, furry bot with four small limbs, a long snout, and pink eyes. It's painted white. Yes, white. What do you do? Give the player(s) just enough time to worry about a possible ULTRAVIOLET bot. But not too much time. Stay away from Jerry! Keri-Y freaks and attacks to protect her pet. Unless the PCs are keeping an eye on her, she'll get the jump on one Troubleshooter, preferably the one belonging to the player who didn't do all that much. Teach him not to be boring. Don't forget that The Computer wants the INFRAREDs safe. Give some Perversity to anyone who tries to protect them; give some fines and public censure to anyone who hurts the INFRAREDs, accidentally or not. At no point should you allow Jerry to get hurt. He'll scamper around, seemingly oblivious to all the laser fire and falling bodies. That's because Jerry is a bot who's designed to covertly record things of this nature. And he is. Recording. Everything the PCs do. As long as Jerry is with the PCs, every place they enter should be treated as if it had a Tension level of 18. But don't punish the players – yet. See, Jerry is designed for the Outdoors. He has no connection to AlphaNet, and all recordings are put onto a removable memchip for later viewing. Write down all of the treason caught by Jerry and save it for debriefing. When is a bot not a bot? When it's a rat – but it's not Before we go further, here's a short philosophical essay on bots, rats, citizens, and Troubleshooters. The word bot gets used a lot in Alpha Complex. Technically, a bot is a mechanical device tied to an advanced, artificial intelligence device called a bot brain. This brain get programmed to do whatever the bot was designed to do: a guardbot guards and a scrubot scrus ... scrubs. Sorry. Many citizens think (incorrectly) almost any mechanical device is a bot. If they see something moving around like it has some sense of purpose, and it isn't another citizen, then it's a bot. What else is there? When the INFRAREDs in the WIL Sector Soylet Red Processing Center saw something tiny and white moving like it had some sense of purpose, they assumed it was a bot. Makes sense to them. Sure, they know about the Outdoors, but that knowledge has been completely corrupted by HPD&MC vidshows. Ask your average INFRARED what they think an 'animal' looks like, and they'll spin a yarn about Giant Radioactive Mutant Cockroaches. They wouldn't be wrong, but there are more kinds of animals still around. When the Troubleshooters see Jerry scurrying about, they'll likely assume it's some kind of bot. The players, on the other hand, will assume it's a real rat. Veteran players will be too busy thinking how Jerry could be used in some kind of blackmail plot to worry about the real/artificial argument. If your players start having fun pretending a rat is a bot, let 'em. Then watch their faces as the rat they role-played thinking of a bot turned out to really be a bot. And never, never forget Jerry is recording everything. When Keri-Y is terminated, Friend Computer decides to override the Troubleshooter's mission. Congradulations on terminating the traitor Keri-Y-LOP-2. Your mission has been updated. You are to capture the runaway bot referred to as Jerry and deliver it to R&D's Botutech Labs in this sector. The bot must remain unharmed. Directions have been downloaded to your PDCs. I will be watching. Yes, the PCs now have to catch Jerry. Without harming it. Actually, Jerry is a pretty solid bot. Laser fire will char its white fur but that's about it. Stepping on it will hurt the person's foot more than Jerry. How can the players catch the rat/bot? Let them come up with a plan. If they run around like the Three Stooges and try to grab Jerry, then they succeed only with an Violence/Agility roll with a margin of five or higher. Don't let the players get too bogged down by this or the mission will start to drag, but give the players this opportunity to be all creative and whatnot. Award some Perversity to clever schemes and, if they're really clever, have it succeed. If they're not clever, have 'em run around like the Three Stooges on speed. As for Jerry's color ... don't punish anyone for clearance violations. After all, The Computer ordered them to catch the white bot, and The Computer is the only one higher than ULTRAVIOLET (but don't tell the High Programmers that). Troubleshooters routinely handle equipment that's technically higher than their clearance; that's part of the job. But other citizens might not know that. After Jerry's been captured, ask how the players are going to hold onto him. If Jerry isn't completely covered, some YELLOW and GREEN citizens are going to ask the Troubleshooters what they're doing with an ULTRAVIOLET piece of ... something, whatever it is. This should be played to make the players sweat, not to warm up another replacement clone. The higher-clearance citizens just want to make sure cameras record them being diligent in protecting what could be some ULTRAVIOLET's stuff. In other words, they're all talk. The players won't know that, and if anyone starts to catch on and get a little cocky, use some punishments to take them down a peg or five. 3: Okay, maybe it's not so wireless. When the players have captured Jerry and check their PDCs for the directions, read the following: DIRECTIONS FOR TEAM 46-OB [start] Walk down the corridor and find an escalator heading down. Step off at the fourth level passed and see a door marked 'Quiet Please.' Go through this door and through the other door in the opposite wall. Go through this door and see a large gray door labeled Botutech Labs RD. That is your destination [end] This time, travelling won't be so easy. Sierra Club had tapped into the security feeds from cameras in Keri-Y's production center (Keri-Y kept raving about her 'pet,' so the Club decided to make sure this wasn't a hallucination – going to the Outdoors duing initiation can unhinge some clones). And they're planning a trap. An ill-conceived trap that will kill more Sierra Clubbers than Troubleshooters, but a trap nonetheless. See? All this time we weren't writing travelling bits on purpose, just to set up this ambush. You're welcome. I will keep it and love it and name it George When the PCs head down the corridor, they find Escalator WIL-55:12 that heads down like the directions indicated. WIL-55:12 is an old escalator, and it really needs to be replaced. It works fine, but it does tend to creak, shake a bit, and occasionally stop for a second or two. All of ths is meant to worry the PCs and isn't really a danger. Unless they've angered you for some reason. Then turn 'em into pulp. When everyone is on the slow-moving escalator heading down, read the following: You see a group of six RED citizens slowly coming closer on the up escalator to your left. A noise causes you to turn around, and you see another group of six RED citizens getting on the down escalator behind you. Hey! It's an escalator! It's supposed to take citizens up or down! The 'Up Group' is a Sierra Club subfaction called Animal Rescue Unit. Their job is to find any living creature that wandered into Alpha Complex from the Outdoors, capture it unharmed, and return it to its natural habitat. They heard Jerry is bound for some R&D lab, so they're determined to take it from the Troubleshooters. The ''Down Group' is a Sierra Club subfaction called Pets For People. Their job is to find any living creature that wandered into Alpha Complex from the Outdoors, capture it unharmed, and keep it as a pet. They heard Jerry is bound for some R&D lab, so they're determined to take it from the Troubleshooters. Animal Rescue Unit and Pets For People have what's called a 'friendly rivalry.' Except, in PARANOIA, no rivalry is friendly for long. The group coming up seems to be looking behind you at the other group. When you look behind you, the others are looking at the group coming up. Both groups seem a little agitated. Smart players will ready their weapons but stay quiet, recognizing that the two groups seem more interested in each other. However, time and time again we've seen players that just aren't smart enough. There's something about handing their characters a laser that drops the ol' IQ. Go figure. At this point, there's nothing to prove that these two groups aren't loyal citizens using standard transportation provided by The Computer to get around the Complex. So any PC who starts firing pre-emptively will be accused of starting the firefight. They might save themselvs now, but Jerry's recording will show a different story: two groups of happy RED citizens were mercilously attacked by a Troubleshooter. Good luck explaining that one. If a PC starts firing, then both groups open fire on the Troubleshooters. Play out the combat, if you think it's necessary or fun. The team will most likely be slaughtered by the Sierra's, and you'll need to decide what to do with Jerry. If you want to expand this mission a bit, have one of the Sierra Club subfactions survive and capture Jerry. Now the PCs have to hunt down the Sierra Club and retake Jerry. That could be fun, but again, that will lengthen this mission well past a single session. For those GMs who want to keep this short, have the replacement clones arrive to find Jerry calmly sniffing around the bodies of dead Sierra Club traitors at the top of the escalator. Jerry's recording will show the Animal Rescue Unit grabbed it first, but both sides killed each other, leaving Jerry on its own. If the PCs manage to contain their bloodlust, read the following: As the up group gets close, they start to yell at the group behind you. You Pet people get back! This is our assignment! The group heading down yells back. Oh no! We saw it first! You Rescuers can go recycle yourselves! The two sides will quickly open fire on each other (using their 'natural' weapons first to prove they're more Outdoorsey), ignoring the Troubleshooters and Jerry. They'll jump escalators, wrestle, fire from afar, take cover, the whole nine yards. If the players stay cool and keep down, they'll survive without a scratch. They'll do just that. Right. Don't forget the team is supposed to get off at the fourth level down, which is level R. 'R' in this case stands for RED. If the PCs get into combat and it lasts longer than two rounds, they sail past level R and down to level O, Y, G ... whichever clearance you think is funny. If the players forget about this, don't mention it. Let them figure it out. Player: That'll teach those traitors. I step off when we reach the fourth level. GM: The fourth? Oh, you passed that already. Player: What? GM: Yep. Hard to say what level you're closing in on, what with all that combat. Player: Oh no. I step off at the next level. GM: Fine. You step out into a clean, brightly lit hallway. BLUE citizens walk past and stare at you. Player: Um ... what clearance is this level? GM: Well, there's a thick BLUE stripe running along every wall. What do you think? Tip toe through the Vultures One way or the other, the PCs arrive at the fourth level and see the door marked 'Quiet Please' just like the directions said. The door is the standard light gray like most hallways, doors, and floors. When the players open the door, read the following: The room is dark except for a solitary nightlight. It's very quiet—only the occasional snorring breaks the silence. In the dim light you can just make out what could be rows of bunk beds. Some kind of dark thing sits at the foot of every bunk. The PCs have arrived at the WIL Sector Vulture Squadron Dormatory. That's right—the room is filled with thirty sleeping Vultures, the most highly trained and violent soldiers in Armed Forces. Try to contain your glee. The players might get suspicious. Your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. You see a door at the far end, and some words printed above it: Vulture Squadron-something or other. Dorh? Borm? Why do the directions head through a Vulture dormatory? Because it's Alpha Complex! Fine, you want a more solid explanation? Um ... the Vultures are almost never here. They're usually on field exercises, and CPU thought it was a waste to keep this room for Vultues only when they almost never use it. So they built an R&D lab on the other side. Hey, space is at a premium when you live underground. The goal of this room is to make the players fear for their lives. As they creep past the bunks, have a few soldiers roll over in their beds. Play up the angle of 'almost-woke up' to the hilt. Now, this is a PARANOIA mission. We know what could happen. Some player will probably try to wake the Vultures and get the team killed by a group of cranky sadistic killers. We recommend letting this happen only if the player was very clever. For example, if a player says, 'I run for the far door and scream “Commies are here!” at the top of my lungs,' then keep the Vultures asleep. They're all deep sleepers, tucked out from a long day of training exercises, and the screaming does nothing except let the rest of the team know that player is a viable target. But if a player uses a mutant power to set off the fire alarm, or manages to get an emergency call for Vultures from The Computer, then the boys in BLUE wake up and take a particular dislike to finding RED citizens creeping through their bedroom. Weapons? This is Vulture Squadron. They can kill with their noses. In other words, creative or subtle play should be rewarded with angry Vultures. Predictive or obvious play should be punished with sleepy bliss. There is one thing that will instantly awaken all thirty Vultures; the sound of a laser being fired. Or a laser barrel being replaced. Or a laser being drawn from a holster. Or any noise involving any type of weapon. It's part of their training. Don't forget that Jerry is recording everything for the debriefing. So, it really is a bot? Whether or not the Vultures wake up, the players should go through the door at the far end. When they do, they'll see a long hallway with a door at the far end. You can tell you're near an R&D firm by the vibrations and faint smell of singed hair. Down the hall you can see a big gray door labeled, 'Botutech Labs RD.' If any player gets nervous about the vibrations or the smell, feed into their fear. Start adding more sensory images, like, 'You start to feel a bit warm' or, 'There's a strange taste in your mouth, like rust or something.' The players will most likely start making accusations of mutant power use. Sounds good to us. The room past the door is about seven meters long and three meters deep. The floor is gray, and four windows are set into the long wall. The first has a white stipe around it. 2nd has a violet stripe. 3rd has an indigo stripe. 4th has two stripes: one blue and one green. Each window also has a colored square on the ground in front of it that corresponds to the color of the stripe, and you can see a long counter running behind the windows. All in all, this room reminds you of a CPU form submission office. Since the path to this room went through a Vulture Squadron dormatory, no one anticipated anyone lower than BLUE clearance coming into this room. The players will need to figure out some way to get help without actually approaching the windows. Once the PCs have made enough noise or the fun starts to wane, someone comes to see what all the trouble is about. A BLUE R&D clone comes to the blue and green window. He's really, really old. And covered in ashes. This clone has a name, but he's forgotten it. In fact, he's forgotten about everything except bots. He's be a high-ranking Corpore Metal member if he could only remember to hate humans. Whah? You'll have to speak up! I hurt my ears in a bot experiment! When the players finally show Jerry to the BLUE citizen, his eyes gleem with happiness. What is this? Oh, Jerry! Everybody, Jerry is back! The BLUE R&D clone opens the window and grabs Jerry from you with surprising speed. He takes the little thing by the long, pink tail ... and slams it hard against the counter. Twice. Any player that freaks out because they think the BLUE clone is killing Jerry will have to explain why they reacted that way. It's just a bot, right? He lays Jerry on the counter. It's not moving. The BLUE R&D clone grabs a screwdriver and starts to poke at poor Jerry. Again, give the players time to screw themselvs over. If anyone tries the,'I just really love bots' angle, suspect them of being Corpore Metal. A small panel opens and out pops a tiny mechanical arm holding a memchip. A voice comes from Jerry and says, 'Memchip full. Please insert new formatted memchip for continued surveillance.' Let this sink in. Then Friend Computer decides the mission is over. Troubleshooter Team 46-OB! Your mission is a success. Please report to room 46-B in RRT Sector for debriefing. Being ratted on by a rat - how ironic. As we've said before, either play out the travelling or just get them there. However, Room 46-B has changed since they were last there. Room 46-B is roomy and warm. The carpet is plush, and the seats look like imitation leather and are quite comfy. A sturdy plastic table waits by each chair. Cold cans of B3 and bowls of ChocoFun Bites and Crunchy Fun Curlz wait invitingly on each table. You can hear soft but pleasant music in the background. John-G-GLD-3 is there, but he's ... different. Now he's over two meters tall. He has to stoop just to stand up in this room. He's reading from his PDC but he notices your entrance and smiles. Surprise! John-G's experimental surgery at the hands of R&D was successful (which is probably the biggest shock of this mission). Now that he's tall, CPU has stopped assigning him the worst rooms, materials, and services. John-G is looking like an active, healthy, and loyal clone, and CPU needs to make up for the years of crappy service it gave the short John-G. Please! Take a seat, any seat. And have some snacks - you deserve it! I'll be right with you. When you sit down, you hear a loud creak from the chair. Yep, definately a creak. Not a click like ammo loading or a safety going off. Just creaking. John-G is very happy, and not just because of his successful change. As far as he knows, the mission went very well. Since The Computer took control of the mission halfway through it, John-G doesn't have many records to go on. However, if The Computer said it was a success, then the briefing officer can expect to take some of the glory. GMs should start passing out commendations for bravery, success, or whatever. Players new to PARANOIA will sit back and bask in the glow. Veteran players will be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Above and past John-G's head, you see a tiny secret door open in the wall. Out crawls a small, furry, ULTRAVIOLET bot. John-G grabs the bot and pulls a wire from it's belly. He connects it to his PDC and starts watching something. Occasionally, you hear some familiar sounds, like your own voices or something. John-G's smile disappears quickly. The other shoe drops hard. Any treason committed by the PCs once they caught Jerry will be available to John-G, who will go out of his way to punish any traitorous Troubleshooters. Start passing out punishments, censures, medications, even terminations (especiall for outright treason related to mutant powers or secret societies). And the end? Anyone who survives the debriefing will be promoted to YELLOW clearance – and put in charge of the WIL Sector Soylend Red Production Center. And you thought the INFRAREDs were rioting before. THE END.